1 | ITALY
AMALFI COAST, ITALY
The
world's most beautiful city,
the most inspiring cultural treasures, and magnificent scenery: Nowhere
else in the world will you find a bigger concentration of beauty.
There's
Venice, Florence and Rome
with their varied architecture, the natural masterpiece that is Tuscany
with its rolling hills, vineyards and snow-peaked mountains. Then
there's the perfect naturalist painting that is the
Amalfi Coast or
Lake Maggiore and the Alps and you get the sense that no country on Earth offers as much beauty anywhere you turn as Italy.
2 | SPAIN
JAÉN (ANDALUSIA), SPAIN
The most common image of
Spain is of the dreadful overdevelopment of
the Costa del Sol or of the coastline of some of the Balearic Islands,
but Spain is so much more than that. It's perhaps the most diverse
country in the world, with everything from white Mediterranean villages
to sophisticated urban centers. You won't find a city with a greater
sense of individuality than Barcelona,
and from the Pyrenees to
Andalusia, Spain could serve as the backdrop
for any kind of film, book or painting. It's also the world's most
seductive country, passionate about living the good life reflected on
grand plazas in even the smaller cities, in well-preserved historic
centers, and in the smallest of villages perched on hilltops. To top it
all off, there are some of the
world's grandest, most powerful and
incomparable architectural treasures, from the Alhambra to the Great
Mosque of Cordoba.
3 | FRANCE
CHÂTEAU DE CHENONCEAU (LOIRE VALLEY), FRANCE
Paris exudes the
most perfect atmosphere of cultural grandeur but although the capital
gets all the attention, France offers so much more. Villages with
abundant Old World charm are all over the country, from around the
magnificent Loire Valley to verdant Provence. Then there's the
glamorous Riviera and if you want to see the world's greatest palace
(Versailles) and museum (the Louvre), here they are. But France is also
a country of world-class living in outdoor cafes, in
perfectly-preserved towns and in wine-producing regions such as
Bordeaux and Champagne. If that's not enough, see the majesty of Mont St.
Michel, the numerous chateaux all over the country and the spectacular
panorama of the Chamonix valley.
4 | AUSTRALIA
ULURU-KATA TJUTA NATIONAL PARK, AUSTRALIA
Australia is more than a country, it's a continent and still more
than that. It's its own world, from the Outback and the
Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park with its world-renowned stone monolith to the Kakadu
National Park. It's in fact wild parks and a wide range of landscapes
that make Australia so extraordinary, from the Mornington Peninsula
National Park facing the open sea to the Great Barrier Reef that's one
of the natural wonders of the world, to the unspoiled tropical
Whitsunday Islands, but then there's
Sydney and its harbor, one of the
most
beautiful and iconic urban areas. Australia has it all, to be
admired before or after a ride down the Great Ocean Road.
5 | GREECE
SANTORINI, GREECE
The
Greek Islands
on the blue waters of the
Aegean Sea are home to some of the world's
most beautiful beaches. They're the first images of the country but
then there's the majestic
Mt. Olympus, extraordinary Meteora, and
ancient ruins around the country. While Athens
disappoints those looking for aesthetic inspiration, Greece is a
country that truly satisfies all the senses and it's understandable how
the idea of so many gods originated here.
6 | PORTUGAL
ALGARVE, PORTUGAL
For the pristine natural wonders of the volcanic Azores alone,
Portugal would be on this list. Then there's the "floating garden" that
is Madeira, the dramatic coastline and mystical capes of the mainland,
the serene plains of the Alentejo with the stunningly-sited white
medieval vilages of Marvão and Monsaraz, the
Peneda-Gerês National Park,
or the perfect collaboration of man and nature in the magic fantasy of
Sintra and verdant Douro Valley. And while the old centers of
Lisbon
and Porto are inexplicably rundown and stubbornly neglected, it's hard
to match their scenic beauty with their grand riverside settings.
Everything is in a small scale but when all combined it's impressive how
so much diverse beauty somehow fits in such a tiny country that seems
to be a favorite of the sun.
7 | USA
THE GRAND CANYON, USA
It has the ugliest cities
in the developed world linked by shopping mall roads of fast food
joints, car lots, billboards, cheap hotels and soulless suburbs (with
populations obliviously living the American nightmare), but when it
comes to nature, America really is the beautiful. There are the
Hawaiian islands, the epic scale of the Grand Canyon, the
extraordinarily clear waters of Lake Tahoe,
California's Big Sur, the
wildlife in Alaska, the breathtaking scenery of Monument Valley or of
Yellowstone, Yosemite and the other great national parks, the forestland
of the Great Smoky Mountains... The list of
natural wonders seems to go
on forever and then there's San Francisco to save the country on the offer of beauty in an urban setting.
8 | BRAZIL
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL
It has one of the world's most beautiful cities (
Rio de Janeiro) and one of the ugliest (São Paulo)
but Brazil really is blessed by nature. The Amazon is incomparable,
impossible to begin to imagine its magnitude, and the horseshoe-shaped
falls of Iguaçu regularly watched by a rainbow is one of the world's
most breathtaking sights. The colonial baroque architecture of the
northeast with their golden interiors mixed with singular traditions
give it one of the world's most soulful atmospheres, and if the
country's other major cities weren't so bland (Brasilia, Belo Horizonte,
Curitiba, Fortaleza, Manaus, etc.),
Brazil would actually rank higher
on this list.
9 | SOUTH AFRICA
TABLE MOUNTAIN, SOUTH AFRICA
Cape Town is one of the world's most beautiful cities
(let's just say it's number 11 on our top 10 list), and the
Kruger National Park is one of the most memorable experiences on the planet for
anyone who visits. South Africa offers epic diversity of landscapes,
from the Blyde River Canyon to the Drakensberg Mountains. With all of
that it's almost easy to forget that it's also a country full of
problems with a capital city that is best avoided, but escape to the
Cape and grab your camera to photograph all in between and you'll be
savoring one of the most awe-inspiring territories on the planet.
10 | GERMANY
BAVARIA, GERMANY
Yes, Germany. Perhaps the world's most underrated country, Germany
is a place of fairytales and architectural jewels. They're not
necessarily found in the largest cities (
Berlin, Frankfurt, Hamburg, or Cologne which are more vibrant than beautiful)
but Munich has its charms and smaller cities such as
Dresden, Leipzig
and Potsdam have been preserved or restored to fairytale eye candy. But
the real storybook Germany is found all along Bavaria's Romantic Road
with its wealth of unbelievable castles, in the Alps' gorgeous lakes and
mountains, in the magical land of the Rhine with its vineyards or in
the enchanting
Black Forest. Begin to tour the country and you'll
discover a land of constant surprises, from the university city of
Heidelberg, to old Bremen or
Bamberg, to the wonderfully preserved
medieval towns of Regensburg and Rothenburg.
